Must-Read: It's not just progressive NIMBYism. The conservative Republican Jarvis-Gann--Proposition 13--changed the balance of local public finances, and makes it expensive to develop. Thus the standard boosterist orientation of municipal governments that offsets NIMBYism has now been gone in California for more than a generation:
Matthew Kahn: Did California Zoning Cause the Trump Win? A Counter-Factual of My State's Electoral Count if Housing Supply is Elastic: "If California had Texas style housing regulations, then 80 million people would live in California and the state would have 100 electoral votes...
...The state would still vote Democrat (because of the composition of these new voters) and Clinton would have won. Why would so many people move here? It is heaven. With Hong Kong style density and water markets, the state could accommodate such growth.... California's progressive cities have blocked housing supply and thus rationed out the middle class from moving here. Such individuals have to live somewhere and the net result was more electoral votes in the Midwest. Note that the same point can be made for Oregon and Washington...
